


Metsuboujinrai.five (or is that four?)

by Bobcatmoran



Series: Metsuboujinrai.fic [6]
Category: Kamen Rider Zero-One
Genre: (the Wazu arc), Gen, Humor, Jin is trying his best, POV Outsider, Pre-Series, Spoilers for episodes 12 and 13, he is just poorly socialized
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-25
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:10:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22888207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bobcatmoran/pseuds/Bobcatmoran
Summary: Distasteful as it may have been, Horobi sometimes had to deal with humans. Fortunately, he had Jin to act at the public face of Metsuboujinrai.net. Unfortunately, he hadJinto act as the public face of Metsuboujinrai.net.
Series: Metsuboujinrai.fic [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1614883
Comments: 14
Kudos: 17





	Metsuboujinrai.five (or is that four?)

**Author's Note:**

> This was partially inspired by a post I saw on either Tumblr or Twitter about how, despite everything else about him, Jin is actually very good about wearing his seatbelt and maintaining good trigger discipline with his gun. Also, my own need to come up with an explanation for why one of the Matsurida Z models was just running around with a remodeled face but with his original programming still intact.

Five identical Humagears was a tall order. Five identical unlicensed Humagears who could pass, at least visually, as official Hiden Intelligence products was an even taller order. Fortunately, this “Horobi,” whoever they were, was willing to pay _very_ well, and the quintet of Matsurida Z dancers had been surprisingly easy to acquire. Plus, Horobi said they’d be willing to reprogram the Humagears themselves, which meant that all that needed to be done was some physical remodeling. 

Overall, Yukiko said to herself, not a bad deal at all for her little business, even if this person refused to communicate except by email and was clearly using some sort of alias. The 滅 they used to sign their emails was some sort of edgelord nonsense. Probably some wannabe gangster. Nobody actually had the name “destruction” written down on their family register.

Regardless, it wouldn’t be her problem for too much longer. Horobi had emailed her saying they’d be sending somone to pick up the Humagears today. The exact word they’d used was “associate,” which had led Takeda to ask if maybe this Horobi was some sort of high-ranking businessman. 

“I’m just saying,” Takeda said as he and Watanabe lifted the last of the Matsurida Z models off the worktable. “I mean, he’s clearly got some coin, being able to pay for this many refurbs at once.”

“I’ll bet they’re for some sort of weird sex thing,” Watanabe said.

“What?” Yukiko asked. “Why on earth would you think that?”

“Five identical models? And they don’t want us to program them?”

“Watanabe, you always think it’s for some sort of weird sex thing,” Takeda said. 

“Tell me that the guy who asked for a bot that looked like his ex-girlfriend didn’t want it for some sort of weird sex thing,” Watanabe said.

“He did, and that’s why I told him to look elsewhere,” Yukiko said. She turned to leave, opened the door, and nearly walked right into a young man who was standing right behind it.

“Gyah!” she yelped.

The young man doubled over in laughter. “Got you!” he exclaimed.

“How did you get in here?” she demanded. “This is a private business!”

“Horobi sent me,” the young man said. He craned his neck, peering around Yukiko. “Are our new friends ready?” 

“Horobi sent you,” Yukiko echoed, looking the young man up and down. Somehow, when Horobi had said they were sending an “associate,” she’d pictured more clean cut, suit-and-tie, and briefcase carrying. Not someone who was wearing mismatched boots, looked like he was wearing a western-style belt on top of an obi to bind a bunch of random scraps of cloth around his waist, and had a ragged shirt that was more pockets than anything else.

“There’s supposed to be five of them,” the young man said, undeterred.

Yukiko decided to go into full-on professional mode. She bowed and said, “Well, it is very nice to meet you. I’m Matsunaga Yukiko, the owner. It has been a pleasure doing business with your organization.” She presented the young man with her business card.

He held the business card up at arm’s length, then flipped it over and brought it in for closer scrutiny before stashing it in a pocket on his sleeve. 

Yukiko looked at him expectantly.

“Oh. Um.” The young man reached into another of his sleeve pockets and pulled out a small piece of paper. “I’m Jin.”

Yukiko looked at the piece of paper, which was blank except for a Doraemon sticker. She plastered a bland smile on her face as she looked back up at Jin. “If you’ll follow me, please, I can show you the Humagears.” She led him into the back workroom. “Well, Jin-san, here they are,” she said, gesturing towards the five Humagears, all sitting in a row along a bench. 

“Oh!” Jin exclaimed. He grinned as he circled them, bending down so he was at eye level with the Humagears. He carefully straightened up one who was sitting slightly crooked, stood back, and gave a sharp nod. “They’re perfect! I’ll let Horobi know.” He then reached into —was that a pocket _on top of another pocket?_ — and pulled out a flip phone. He began laboriously texting into the phone that looked almost exactly like the one Yukiko had in high school, over a decade ago.

“Excuse me, Jin-san, will you need us to deliver the Humagears? Horobi wasn’t clear on that.”

“Nope,” Jin said, the tiny beeps of his texting not slowing while he talked. “I got one of those big taxis that can take five passengers.”

Yukiko paused, did the math, and was about to say something when Jin’s phone chirped. He read something on the screen, then announced, “Horobi says that he sent you the rest of your payment.”

Yukiko pulled out her own phone and checked. Her account was now increased by a couple million yen. Perfect. “Takeda, Watanabe, help him get the Humagears out to his car.”

The two men between them lifted one of the Humagears onto a specially designed dolly. “Which way are you parked?” Watanabe asked.

“The taxi is on the side street,” Jin said. He then grabbed one of the Humagears and hoisted it up onto his shoulder. “This way,” he said, gesturing with his head.

“Did he just…” Takeda asked.

“He’s stronger than he looks,” Watanabe mused.

They followed Jin out to the taxi, where he was carefully buckling in the first of the Humagears in the back seat. He reached out for the second Humagear and gently set it into the back seat next to the first before putting on its seatbelt. 

Takeda peered into the taxi, noting the number of seats. “You want the next one in the trunk?”

Jin shot him a horrified look. “No! That’s not safe! They all have seats, see? One, two, three, four, five,” he counted off.

“Where are you going to sit?”

“I’m…oh.” 

“You gonna give the robots all the seats and you ride in the trunk?” Watanabe joked.

“All passengers must be wearing safety belts before the vehicle is in motion,” the Humagear driver said.

“Yeah,” Jin said. “You need to wear your seatbelt.” He looked around the car again. “Oh, Horobi’s gonna be mad,” he said dejectedly.

“Look, they’re just robots, they don’t need to all have seats,” Takeda said. 

“Shut up!” Jin said, suddenly angry. 

“Hey, okay, I was only trying to suggest —“ 

“Shut up,” Jin repeated.

There was a long pause, and then Watanabe suggested, “We could follow you in the delivery van with the last one.”

“Horobi said to get a taxi so you didn’t know where we were,” Jin said.

“But you’re okay with the taxi company knowing?” Watanabe asked.

“Humagears are okay,” Jin said. “You’re not Humagears.” He hopped out of the taxi. “How about I go with four of them and then I can come back later for the last one?”

Watanabe and Takeda looked at each other and shrugged. “I don’t see why that’d be a problem.”

“Okay!” Jin said, bouncing excitedly. “Let’s get the other two!”

* * *

**Six months later**

“Watanabe, get off your phone and get back to work,” Yukiko said irritably. All this news about Humagears going berserk — she didn’t like it. Business was down as people were increasingly avoiding buying Humagears, remodeled or not.

Watanabe, still focused on his phone, waved her over and said, “Boss, you’re going to want to see this.”

“What’s this? Is this that conspiracy show? Watanabe, I told you that’s like 90% garbage.” The hosts were having some sort of discussion about Humagear eye color, and then cut to a clip of a Humagear transforming into one of those robomonsters that had been on the news lately. A very familiar-looking Humagear. “Shit,” Yukiko said. 

“That’s one of those remodeled Matsurida Z’s that you sold to that weird guy, right?” Watanabe said.

“Shit,” Yukiko repeated. “Do we still have that last one, the one they never came back to pick up?”

“Yeah, why?” Watanabe said. “You think it’s going to turn into a monster, too?”

“I don’t know, but if AIMS manages to track that one on your show back to us, I don’t want any evidence lying around. Get rid of it.”

“Get rid of it? Where? How?”

“I don’t care, just get rid of it.”


End file.
